Singer From the Sea

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “But the court has off-planet doctors,” she said.

  “Who can do nothing for batfly fever, or so I’ve heard.”

  “Well then,” she said. “Tell me about batfly fever, for it is one of the subjects I must learn about.”

  “Where did you live, before you came here?”

  “At school in Wantresse. Or at Langmarsh House, also in Wantresse.”

  “Wantresse is hill country, and you were fortunate to live high up,” he said. “I am told the batfly flourishes at lower altitudes, especially in the moist herbage along the rivers and the lakeshores. The flies are said to carry the fever virus in their blood, which would do us no harm if it stayed there. The flies, however, are said to be infested with mites that suck up the virus, and when the batflies are flying, they are also shedding mites onto everything below, trees, people, animals. The mites are tiny, transparent, almost invisible, and when they burrow into a person seeking blood, the person gets the virus.”

  “But not in the hills?”

  “Evidently not, nor along the shore of salt seas. The batflies, I am told, prefer rainy woods along freshwater rivers and ponds and lakes and during wet years there are millions of batflies dropping zillions of mites onto people, though in drier years, one hardly hears of a case.”

  “Dreadful! Really dreadful!”

  “It would be, we are told, without P’naki.”

  “And what does P’naki do for us? It’s horrid tasting!”

  “If you know how it tastes, you must have known what it was for!”

  “Well, I knew it was medicine, without at all comprehending the reality. Della gave it to me when I was a tiny child and we were visiting Lord Fenrider, Earl of Evermire. What does it do?”

  “A dose every ten or twelve days is supposed to make people poisonous to the mites. Before it even nibbles, the mite simply shrivels up and dies.”

  She made a face. “I can understand why Prince Thumsort would be worried,” she said. “According to his son, Edoard, his father talks only about batflies and fish.”

  He smiled at her. “Life has many pitfalls, my lady, and few of them make pleasant conversation. I would rather discuss something much more amusing than either flies or fish, such as how we are going to dress you to advantage!”

  So derailed, she did not return to the subject until late that evening when, prepared for bed, she sat before her mirror while Della brushed her hair. “What do we have on Haven,” she murmured aloud, “to trade for off-planet goods?”

  “Pearls,” said Della, without missing a stroke.

  “Pearls? On Haven? Pearls are an Old Earth thing. You know the ones that Mother gave me. They came from some ancestress, but I assume they were brought from Earth. I’ve never heard of Haven pearls.”

  Della smiled at her in the mirror, rather grimly. “They don’t talk of it in the marketplace, my lady.”

  “Well then, why do you say it’s pearls?”

  “It stands to reason it has to be something! And we’ve explored all the land on Haven, so it’s nothing on land or we’d know about it. So, it has to be something from the sea, and whatever it is, it goes off Haven in ships.”

  “If no one knows what it is, how do they know what goes off Haven?”

  “Nobody knows, but everybody guesses. And we do know some things. We know sometimes a starship comes to Haven. It sends down a little boat, like a sailing ship sends a dory, and it lands down at a place at the edge of the Plains of Bliggen in Barfezi, where it’s flat and rocky and out of the way. There’s always someone waiting for that ship, someone dressed in the royal livery, all sparkles and gold, and that person marches out to the boat and he hands over a box, not a big box, a small one, the size of a glove box, maybe, and the little boat goes up and away. Then, some later, a bigger ship comes down with people or things for the Lord Paramount, like doctors, or machines. And there’s always men on the hills nearby, watching their sheep, and others in the copses up the valleys, burning charcoal, and they watch the ships and they say it’s pearls in the little box, because they can’t think of anything else it might be. And one of them’s my cousin, and I’ve heard him tell all about it.”

  “Something small. Well, it could be pearls, I suppose,” mused Genevieve. “Though one would think one would have heard of it, if that had been the case.” She yawned. “I am tired out.”

  “No wonder. All that toing and froing of dressmakers. Did you like that crazy one? Veswees?”

  “I did, rather,” she said drowsily, sliding between the cool sheets. “He told me what to wear to the concert, which helps. That is, if Father wants me to go. He hasn’t said, yet.” She mused a moment, eyes closed. “Veswees knows something he’d like to tell me, but he can’t, or won’t, or shouldn’t. And he drew some exciting dresses. He’ll be back in a day or two, with muslin patterns, for a fitting …”

  But Della had already gone.

  In the night Genevieve dreamed of Aufors. The two of them were sailing away somewhere, having a conversation with fish. She didn’t know where they were going or what they were talking about, but things grew more interesting the longer the dream went on.

  EIGHT

  A Proposal and What Followed

  A MESSENGER CAME ON THE MORNING WITH A NOTE FROM Alicia, Duchess Bellser-Bar, inviting Genevieve to accompany her on a tour of the royal greenhouses. Genevieve gave the messenger her acceptance, with thanks, and the ducal carriage arrived in an hour. The Duchess was well muffled up, her face half-hidden in furs, for though the skies were clear, the weather continued cold. They rode through a city wild with wind, the trees on the boulevards twisting in a frenzy, the banners atop the pinnacles lashing, everything in motion, even the gemmed and broken tight that jigged and glittered from the long, jewel-faceted conservatories.

  A footman helped them from the carriage, another opened the doors, and inside a cultivation of gardeners stood slowly from their work, tools still in their hands. The Duchess was obviously a well-known and well-liked visitor, for they greeted her with smiles and moved eagerly to help both her and Genevieve with the furs and scarves that were now unneeded, for the women had come from chill chaos into an eden of blooms, elegance, and moist, calm air.

  The Duchess, retaining the scarf around her throat and face, thanked each of them by name, then took Genevieve’s hand and walked with her slowly down the graveled pathways among flowering trees laden with epiphytes, urns burgeoning with trailing blossoms, and beds of succulents and rare Old Earth species. As they went she kept her face turned away, drawing Genevieve’s attention to this bloom and that leaf until they were out of earshot of the gardeners, at which point she led Genevieve behind a large pillar draped with fuschias and ivy, removed the scarf, and said in a shaking voice, “My dear, I need to presume on short acquaintance. I need your help greatly, very greatly indeed.”

  Now, with the Duchess facing her, Genevieve could see what the scarf had hidden on the way: an unusual pallor, pinched lines around the lips, eyes pooling with unshed tears. She reached out a hand, all sympathy for the older woman’s obvious distress. “Of course, Alicia. What is it?”

  The Duchess took her arm again and drew her farther along the aisles, away from the busy men, her voice barely above a whisper:

  “My daughter. My daughter Lyndafal. Genevieve, she’s about to have her second child.” She buried her face in her handkerchief, blotting her eyes.

  Genevieve waited a moment, then said in a puzzled voice, “Is that … a troubling thing?”

  “She’s married to Lord Solven, Earl Ruckward of the Sealand. He’s somewhat older than she. She’s his second wife. He already has heirs …”

  “He didn’t want another child?”

  Alicia looked heavenward, hopelessly, making a frustrated gesture. “Genevieve, could you … will you do something for me without my having to explain? I really don’t think I can explain. Will you allow that I have good reasons, though they might seem silly? Will you help me without knowing what they are? I
must somehow help my daughter get away from Ruckward. I believe with all my heart that her life depends upon it.”

  Genevieve stared in incomprehension, her mind tumbling with all the questions she was being forbidden to ask. “You can’t invite her to visit you?”

  “She’s due to deliver any day, and Solven won’t let her leave the place now. It’s within his rights, in accordance with the covenants, so I can’t … I … Genevieve, please!”

  Genevieve bit her lip in indecision, finally shaking her head and saying, “You ask me in friendship, which demands I do what I can, hut I must ask you, why do you want her to defy the covenants?”

  The Duchess took a deep breath. “Knowing would only endanger you, Genevieve. Sometimes we can do in ignorance what we could not do in knowledge. I can only swear to you that it is a matter of her life.”

  “Why do you ask me? I know almost no one, I have very little freedom of action.”

  The Duchess grasped her arm. “It’s your being from Langmarsh that makes me think you can help. My daughter is a good sailor. Since she grew up in Merdune, she could scarcely be anything else. The baby is due soon. Lyndafal has sent me word by a trusted messenger that on the tenth of Early-winter, whether the child is born or not, she plans to leave the estate in Nether Ruckton and sail out onto Havenpool as she does, often, in all weathers, sometimes taking her little daughter. This time she will keep going, eastward, along the Randor Islands to Rams-pize Point.

  “Have you any acquaintances in Evermire who could meet her and hide her? I will pay, of course, and she is a sturdy girl. She can braid up her hair and work as a farmer or fisherman …” Her eyes went into her handkerchief again and she breathed deeply. “Oh, I have no right to ask …”

  Genevieve patted her arm. “I’ll talk with Della, my maid. She’s related to half the people in Evermire.”

  “Don’t tell her it’s my daughter. Make up a story. She will use the name Bessany Blodden. Perhaps she could be a servant girl fleeing from an irate father.”

  “Something like that,” Genevieve mused. “The immediate problem is that I may need to hire a messenger, and while Father provides adequately for the household, he gives me almost no pocket money of my own.”

  “Oh, child, don’t worry on that.” She reached into the pocket of her cloak and brought out a clinking bag. “Coin. Not at all traceable, as royal notes would be. Take what you will and keep what’s left over as my gift of thanks. How soon, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll need to meet again.” She thought furiously, erupting with, “Are you sure, Alicia? Aré you sure you want to do this and that I’m the best person to ask? I know so little of what’s going on …” Her voice trailed into troubled silence.

  “That’s why, girl. No one will think of you or ask you questions. You’re an infant. You have the experience of an egg. Anything that goes on with you goes on inside you. You don’t gossip, you don’t twitter. I’m presuming on our kinship, ancient though that is. And on our friendship, young though that is.” She burst into silent tears once more, letting them flow without hindrance.

  “Shhh. I’ll do what I can. You must think of some other jaunt we can take two days hence, and I’ll tell you then what’s arranged. Now. Dry your eyes. You don’t want them seeing you’ve been crying. It’ll make people wonder.”

  Making people wonder, according to Mrs. Blessingham, was the first step on the slippery slope of perdition. Covenanters disliked wondering. They preferred certainty.

  They wandered a while longer while the Duchess calmed herself and fixed her face with the aid of a pocket mirror. When they had stayed long enough for appearance’s sake, they smiled and murmured their way back to the carriage and went directly to the Marshal’s house, where the Duchess insisted upon alighting from her carriage and walking away from it with Genevieve.

  “I’ll see you day after tomorrow,” said the Duchess, giving Genevieve a hug. “Tell whoever it is to light a signal fire at the end of the Ramspize. She will guide by that.”

  “A signal fire,” she agreed.

  She went looking for Della, finding her out by the stables, which Genevieve considered a more private place to talk than the house.

  “Della, I need to ask a great favor of you and maybe of John. I’ll pay you well for it, but you mustn’t ever speak of it to Father, for he’d be most annoyed.”

  Della sat down on a convenient keg and looked interested while Genevieve described the plight of a servant girl of whom the Duchess was quite fond, who now worked for the Duchess’s daughter, and of this poor girl’s husband, who was inclined to be violent and vindictive, so the girl herself needed a place to bide with her child until it was weaned, at least. A secret place.

  “I’ll wager the Earl got her pregnant,” grunted Della. “That’s who the Duchess’s daughter is married to, Lord Solven, Earl of Ruckward, and that would explain all this secrecy and anger. Well, the Earl has a reputation for being a son of thunder, and it’s not the first time he’s bred a servant girl, so I can understand how the Duchess and her daughter feel. There’s no covenants ruling what us common folk can do, so I can arrange for one of my cousins to meet this girl and her babe. I’ve family who lives down Southmarsh way, right near the Ramspize, including one old lady who could use some company.”

  “She’ll arrive on Ramspize Point about the fifteenth, Della. Someone needs to light a signal fire on the shore, to guide her where they’re waiting. You’ll need to go to Evermire …”

  “I won’t need to go anywhere. The Langmarsh men are returning home today, and my John’s going with them, to pick up some things the Marshal wants brought from Langmarsh House. He’ll find someone trusty who’ll go to Evermire and fix it with my cousins. When he gets back, he’ll tell me how he’s managed it.”

  “Are you sure John won’t mention it to anyone? It would be so dangerous for me, and for the girl …”

  Della snorted. “And me as well, Jenny. John might not care that much about the girl, or even about you, forgive me for speaking freely, but if I let him know it would endanger me, he’ll not say a word. I promise you that.”

  “Thank you! Oh, thank you!”

  Della’s mouth twisted ironically. “No thanks needed if, as I believe, the Duchess intends to pay for it. It would have to be her, for I know your father keeps you in short shrift.”

  Genevieve flushed. “It is her money, yes. A hundred royals for you and John, and another hundred for expenses, and still another to help keep the girl until it’s safe for her to return home or she can care for herself. Do you think that will be enough?” She had considered this business of money during the drive home, deciding on this figure at least as a starting point.

  “Fifty will do for expenses, including a bit for whoever goes to Evermire and sets it up, but it could take more than a hundred for keeping the girl, so the total is fair. What’s her name?”

  “Bessany Blodden.” She passed over the six fifty-royal pieces she had taken from the bag. Della took the coins, looked them over carefully, nodded her satisfaction, and pocketed them. “My lady,” she said, flushing.

  “Yes?”

  “For you, I would have done it for nothing except expenses, but John and me, we’re looking to buy a bit of land in Wantresse. A place to keep us when we’re old, and any little money extra goes to that. I thought, since it was someone else’s business …”

  Genevieve laid her hands on Della’s shoulder and leaned forward to put their cheeks together. “That’s all right, Della. If ever I can, I’ll put by a bit for your land. I’ve done you little enough good so far for all your years caring for me.”

  Della flushed again, started to speak, then shook her head and turned away.

  Genevieve went back to her own room and lay down on the bed to think first about Della’s land, for land was a matter of constant concern to the commons. Too much of it was owned by the nobles, far more than they could use. When she’d exhausted what she knew or felt about that subject,
she considered what Alicia had asked her to do. The story she and Della had made up between them seemed so plausible she could almost accept it as reality except for one oddness. Why did Lord Solven, Earl of Ruckward, mind if his young wife had a child? And, why was Alicia ready to risk her daughter’s soul in this way, for certainly her daughter had taken an oath when she married the Lord Solven! A life in his service. Which didn’t include running off!

  But then, Veswees’s remark about young mothers having a difficult time came to mind. And her noticing how few young mothers there were. And many of the students at school had been motherless, as Genevieve herself was, the result of noble husbands insisting upon having an heir, or two, or three, with mothers dying in childbirth, because they were older. One would think the off-world doctors so much touted by the court would be able to do something about that. Why did so many noblewomen die? In the villages of Wantresse there were many young mothers. Most of the women servants at school had children that they chattered about and showed pictures of.

  Was it because noble heirs had to be born at home, as the covenants required? Perhaps that was what Alicia was afraid of for her daughter. That she would perish bearing a child at home. But that would be safer than in a boat at sea! Surely that was more dangerous yet….

  Someone rapped at her door, then opened it. The Marshal, her father, poking his head in, saying impatiently, “Genevieve? Aren’t you well?”

  “Quite well, Father. Just resting a bit before luncheon.”

  “Well, get up and put your court dress on. We’ve received a summons, you and I. The Lord Paramount wishes to meet you.”

  Della helped her get into the wide-skirted, rigidly boned, high-necked casing that served as daytime court dress. As soon as they were full grown, all students at Blessingham’s had court dresses made for their eventual presentations, and managing the voluminous skirts had been part of the curriculum taught by the dancing instructor. Being introduced to the Lord Paramount was a formality, and on formal occasions everyone wore court dress, each of the color assigned to his own rank, from the purple of royalty down to the brown of gentlemen. Only commoners of the lower sort wore red, for it was considered so improper a color that it was never used in clothing or decoration, at least not by those with any pretensions of class.